Early results show incumbents in lead for Supervisors race

All three incumbents up for re-election to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors were well ahead of their opponents Tuesday night, though Supervisor John Flynn appeared headed for a November runoff with his top challenger, John Zaragoza.

Flynn, Zaragoza and Denis O'Leary are vying to represent the 5th District, which covers the Oxnard area. At 11 p.m, with a little more than half of the votes counted--including all early absentee ballots but only a small fraction of the votes cast at the polling places --Flynn had 48.8 percent of the vote, Zaragoza had 33 percent, and O'Leary had 17.8 percent.

If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two will advance to a runoff. With thousands of votes left to count, Flynn could easily climb above 50 percent.

"I'm happy with the 48.8 percent, but I'm looking for that 50 percent plus one vote," Flynn said.

He had invited some friends and supporters to his home on Tuesday to watch the results, but they were still inconclusive at about 11 p.m., so his guests headed home without knowing how much they should be celebrating.

Zaragoza, an Oxnard city councilman, said he was also happy with his performance. Turnout in the election was very low, projected at just above 20 percent, and Zaragoza said that made it much harder for him to challenge Flynn.

"That low turnout makes it very hard to be a challenger," Zaragoza said. "I believe that it we go into a runoff, we'll do very good. We've worked really hard and ran a very good campaign."

Flynn said he was disappointed in the turnout, which looked even lower in Oxnard than the rest of the county.

"It's just about 20 percent, and that's just horrible," he said.

Flynn, 75, has been the 5th District supervisor for 32 of the past 36 years. If he's re-elected, he will become the longest-serving supervisor in Ventura County's history.

His victories have gotten tighter in recent years, though. In 2004, he needed a runoff to defeat then-Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez, when Flynn won 56 percent of the vote.

Third District Supervisor Kathy Long held a huge lead on Tuesday night over her opponent, Socorro Lopez Hanson. Long had 81.7 percent of the vote, and Lopez Hanson had 16.1 percent, with about two-thirds of the district's votes counted.

If Long holds onto that lead, she will win her fourth term on the board. She represents a district that includes Camarillo, Port Hueneme, and the Santa Clara River Valley communities of Piru, Fillmore and Santa Paula. In her first three campaigns, she defeated Camarillo City Councilman Mike Morgan. This time, she faced Lopez Hanson, an executive at a nonprofit agency and a member of the Oxnard Union High School District Board of Trustees.

Lopez Hanson was at a huge financial disadvantage in her campaign. Long has a $64,000 campaign war chest, while Lopez Hanson loaned her campaign $7,000 and raised about $2,000 more from donors.

In the 1st District, which includes the Ojai Valley, the Ventura area and some Oxnard beach communities, Supervisor Steve Bennett was running without any opponent on the ballot. Jeff Ketelsen of Mira Monte was registered as an official write-in candidate.

Bennett had 96.8 percent of the vote as of 11 p.m. on Tuesday, with write-in votes at 3.2 percent.